Cylinder head casting (pushrod 8 port) ???

Cylinder head casting (pushrod 8 port) ???

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Discussion

kneegrow

Original Poster:

220 posts

256 months

Wednesday 17th March 2004
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Hello sports fans, I have decided that it is high time I cast myself a home spun 8 port head for my mini. (or at least tried to). I have access to molten metal and greensand. The problem is, how do they produce the castings? They are either in 2 pieces and then "Stuck" together (sintered?) and that's about it. I find it very hard to believe that a one piece casting would be very hard to "get your sand back" from the waterways, etc. Casting an item with no cavities is no problem. I have probably overlooked something very basic (off to find book on casting)........stu

Justin S

3,641 posts

261 months

Wednesday 17th March 2004
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you may have all the equipment to do the job,but there is more than that to deal with.port design,cam designs,valve designs.Just can't go and do something like that.You will need to spend a lot of development time sorting something like that out.KAD in kent made 16 valve heads for the mini's in years gone past.Don't know if they still do.Many people dump the 3 bearing mini engine and gearbox and fit vauxhall 2ltr 16v engines with gearboxes or a popular one is the Honda v tec engine and box.Far more cost efficient and far superior engines.

kneegrow

Original Poster:

220 posts

256 months

Wednesday 17th March 2004
quotequote all
It's ok, I know what I'm doing maths wise and it should be no problem. I will build a couple of plugs and take moulds from these. I will then make my sand cores by a stock set of moulds and waterways. Wire the cores in place and then rock n roll (basically). I overlooked the fact that moulding sand becomes pretty pourable after it has been cooked. No problems here then.

Why? The reason being that you need to have a fully operational staffed plant to produce anything which might give you more power and you should always pay somebody thousands of pounds to do anything, right? No.

Other 8 port heads cost more than the rest of the engine/car. Ridiculous. Most performance heads started off as a one off casting.

If I was going to do something with a non-mini engine, it would involve a Ford Capri and the biggest V8 I could find.

Should be on the pattern building front soon.

wedg1e

26,801 posts

265 months

Thursday 18th March 2004
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One of my clients makes aero engine parts by the lost wax process. They cast very accurate wax parts, assemble with a soldering iron and spray with plaster (for want of a better description). Then the wax is melted (or dissolved) out and alloy poured to provide the final piece. Shafts and bores are made using precision ceramic pieces that are embedded in the wax. The whole process results in a part that is within microns of the required final size.
To be absolutely certain that the wax 'models' are perfect, they are X-rayed to make sure none of the ceramics have moved. That's where I come in: I look after the X-ray systems...

Ian

Dinodelta

6 posts

241 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
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Would have thought using polystyrene would be ok. I know it would give a rough finish but really, you want a extra metal that you can then accurately machine to spec.